Chapter IX

At four o'clock, conscious of his throbbing heart, Levin stepped out
of a hired sleigh at the Zoological Gardens and turned along the
path to the frozen mounds and the skating ground, knowing that he
would certainly find her there, as he had seen the Shcherbatskys'
carriage at the entrance.

It was a bright, frosty day. Rows of carriages, sleighs, drivers and
gendarmes were standing in the approach. Crowds of well-dressed
people, with hats bright in the sun, swarmed about the entrance and
along the well-swept paths between the little houses adorned with
carving in the Russian style. The old curly birches of the gardens,
all their twigs laden with snow, looked as though freshly decked in
sacred vestments.

He walked along the path toward the skating ground, and kept
saying to himself- "You mustn't be excited, you must be calm. What's
the matter with you? What do you want? Be still, foolish one," he
conjured his heart. And the more he tried to compose himself, the more
breathless he found himself. An acquaintance met him and called him by
his name, but Levin did not even recognize him. He went toward the
mounds, whence came the clank of the chains of sleighs as they slipped
down or were dragged up, the rumble of the sliding sleighs and the
sounds of merry voices. He walked on a few steps, and the skating
ground lay open before him, and at once, amid all the skaters, he
recognized her.

He knew she was there by the rapture and the terror that seized
his heart. She was standing talking to a lady at the opposite end of
the ground. There was apparently nothing striking either in her
dress or her attitude, but for Levin she was as easy to find in that
crowd as a rose among nettles. Everything was made bright by her.
She was the smile that shed light on all around her. "Is it possible I
can go over there on the ice- approach her?" he thought. The place
where she stood seemed to him a holy shrine, unapproachable, and there
was one moment when he was almost retreating, so overwhelmed was he
with terror. He had to make an effort to master himself, and to remind
himself that people of all sorts were moving about her, and that he,
too, might have come there to skate. He descended, for a long while
avoiding looking at her as at the sun, yet seeing her, as one does the
sun, without looking.

On that day of the week, and at that time of day, people of one set,
all acquainted with one another, used to meet on the ice. There were
skillful skaters there, showing off their skill, and beginners
clinging to chairs with timid, awkward movements, and boys and elderly
people skating with hygienic motives. They seemed to Levin an elect
band of blissful beings because they were here, near her. All the
skaters, it seemed, with perfect self-possession, skated toward her,
skated by her, even spoke to her, and were happy, quite apart from
her, enjoying the capital ice and the fine weather.

Nikolai Shcherbatsky, Kitty's cousin, in a short jacket and tight
trousers, was sitting on a bench with his skates on. Seeing Levin,
he shouted to him:

"Ah, the first skater in Russia! Been here long? First-rate ice-
do put your skates on."

"I haven't got my skates," Levin answered, marveling at this
boldness and ease in her presence, and not for one second losing sight
of her, though he did not look at her. He felt as though the sun
were coming near him. She was in a corner, and turning out her slender
feet in their high boots, she, with obvious timidity, skated toward
him. A boy in Russian dress, desperately waving his arms and bending
down to the ground, overtook her. She skated a little uncertainly;
taking her hands out of the little muff that hung on a cord, she
held them ready for emergency, and looking toward Levin, whom she
had recognized, she smiled at him and at her own fears. When she had
got round the turn, she got a start with one foot and skated
straight up to Shcherbatsky. Clutching at his arm, she nodded with a
smile to Levin. She was more beautiful than he had imagined her.

When he thought of her, he could call up a vivid picture of her to
himself, especially the charm of that little fair head, so freely
set on the shapely girlish shoulders, and so full of childish
brightness and kindness. Her childish countenance, together with the
delicate beauty of her figure, made up that special charm of hers,
which he appreciated so well. But what always struck him in her as
something unlooked for was the expression of her eyes- soft, serene
and truthful; and, above all, her smile, which always transported
Levin to an enchanted world, where he felt moved and tender, as he
remembered himself during certain rare days of his early childhood.

"Have you been here long?" she said, giving him her hand. "Thank
you," she added, as he picked up the handkerchief that had fallen
out of her muff.

"I? Not long ago... yesterday... I mean I arrived... today..."
answered Levin, in his emotion not comprehending her question
immediately. "I meant to come and see you," he said; and then,
recollecting what his intention was in seeking her, he was promptly
overcome with confusion, and blushed. "I didn't know you could
skate, and skate so well."

She looked at him attentively, as though wishing to make out the
cause of his confusion.

"Your praise is worth having. The tradition is kept up here that you
are the best of skaters," she said, with her little black-gloved
hand brushing some needles of hoarfrost off her muff.

"Yes, I used to skate with passion once upon a time; I wanted to
attain perfection."

"You do everything with passion, I think," she said smiling. "I
should so like to see how you skate. Do put on skates, and let's skate
together."

"Skate together Can that be possible?" thought Levin, gazing at her.

"I'll put them on directly," he said.

And he went off to get skates.

"It's a long while since we've seen you here, sir," said the
attendant, supporting his foot, and screwing on the heel of the skate.
"Except you, there's none of the gentlemen first-rate skaters. Will
that be all right?" said he, tightening the strap.

"Oh, yes, yes; make haste, please," answered Levin, with
difficulty restraining the smile of rapture which would overspread his
face. "Yes," he thought, "this is life, this is happiness! Together,
she said; let us skate together! Speak to her now? But that's just why
I'm afraid to speak- because I'm happy now, happy even though only
in hope.... And then?... But I must! I must! I must! Away,
faintheartedness!"

Levin rose to his feet, took off his overcoat, and, gaining speed
over the rough ice round the pavilion, came out on the smooth ice
and skated without effort, as it were, by, simple exercise of will,
increasing and slackening speed and turning his course. He
approached her with timidity, but again her smile reassured him.

She gave him her hand, and they set off side by side, going faster
and faster, and the more rapidly they moved the more tightly she
grasped his hand.

"With you I should soon learn; I somehow feel confidence in you,"
she said to him.

"And I have confidence in myself when you are leaning on me," he
said, but was at once frightened at what he had said, and blushed. And
indeed, no sooner had he uttered these words, than all at once, like
the sun going behind a cloud, her face lost all its tenderness, and
Levin detected the familiar change in her expression that denoted
mental concentration; a tiny wrinkle came upon her smooth brow.

"Is there anything troubling you? However, I've no right to ask such
a question," he said hurriedly.

"Oh, why so?... No, I have nothing to trouble me," she responded
coldly, and immediately added: "You haven't seen Mlle. Linon, have
you?"

"Not yet."

"Go and speak to her- she likes you so much."

"What's wrong? I have offended her. Lord help me!" thought Levin,
and he flew towards the old Frenchwoman with the gray ringlets, who
was sitting on a bench. Smiling and showing her false teeth, she
greeted him as an old friend.

"Yes, you see we're growing up," she said to him, glancing toward
Kitty, "and growing old. Tiny bear has grown big now!" pursued the
Frenchwoman, laughing, and she reminded him of his joke about the
three young ladies whom he had compared to the three bears in the
English nursery tale. "Do you remember that's what you used to call
them?"

He remembered absolutely nothing, but she had been laughing at the
joke for ten years now and was fond of it.

When Levin darted up to Kitty her face was no longer stern; her eyes
looked at him with the same sincerity and tenderness, but Levin
fancied that in her tenderness there was a certain note of
deliberate composure. And he felt depressed. After talking a little of
her old governess and her peculiarities, she questioned him about
his life.

"Surely, you must feel dull in the country in the winter," she said.

"No, I'm not dull- I am very busy," he said, feeling that she was
making him submit to her composed tone, which he would not have the
strength to break through- just as had been the case at the
beginning of the winter.

"Are you going to stay in town long?" Kitty questioned him.

"I don't know," he answered, not thinking of what he was saying. The
thought came into his mind that if he were held in submission by her
tone of quiet friendliness he would end by going back again without
deciding anything, and he resolved to mutiny against it.

"How is it you don't know?"

"I don't know. It depends upon you," he said, and was immediately
horror-stricken at his own words.

Whether it was that she did not hear his words, or that she did
not want to hear them, she made a sort of stumble, twice struck out,
and hurriedly skated away from him. She skated up to Mlle. Linon, said
something to her, and went toward the pavilion where the ladies took
off their skates.

"My God! What have I done! Merciful God! Help me, guide me," said
Levin, praying inwardly, and at the same time, feeling a need of
violent exercise, he skated about, describing concentric and eccentric
circles.

At that moment one of the young men, the best of the skaters of
the day, came out of the coffeehouse on his skates, with a cigarette
in his mouth. Taking a run he dashed down the steps on his skates,
crashing and leaping. He flew down, and without even changing the
free-and-easy position of his hands, skated away over the ice.

"Ah, that's a new trick!" said Levin, and he promptly ran up to
the top to perform this new trick.

Levin went to the steps, took a run from above as best he could, and
dashed down, preserving his balance in this unwonted movement with his
hands. On the last step he stumbled, but barely touching the ice
with his hand, with a violent effort recovered himself, and skated
off, laughing.

"What a fine, darling chap he is!" Kitty was thinking at that
moment, as she came out of the pavilion with Mlle. Linon and looked
toward him with a smile of quiet kindness, as though he were a
favorite brother. "And can it be my fault, can I have done anything
wrong? They talk of coquetry. I know it's not he that I love; but
still I am happy with him, and he's so nice. Only, why did he say
that?..." she mused.

Catching sight of Kitty going away, and her mother meeting her at
the steps, Levin, flushed from his rapid exercise, stood still and
pondered a minute. He took off his skates, and overtook the mother and
daughter at the entrance of the gardens.

"Delighted to see you," said Princess Shcherbatskaia. "On
Thursdays we are home, as always."

"Today, then?"

"We shall be pleased to see you," the Princess said stiffly.

This stiffness hurt Kitty, and she could not resist the desire to
smooth over her mother's coldness. She turned her head, and with a
smile said:

"Good-by till this evening."

At that moment Stepan Arkadyevich, his hat cocked on one side,
with beaming face and eyes, strode into the garden like a buoyant
conqueror. But as he approached his mother-in-law, he responded to her
inquiries about Dolly's health with a mournful and guilty countenance.
After a little subdued and dejected conversation with her he set
straight his chest again, and took Levin by the arm.

"Well, shall we set off?" he asked. "I've been thinking about you
all this time, and I'm very, very glad you've come," he said,
looking him in the face with a significant air.

"Yes, come along," answered Levin in ecstasy, hearing unceasingly
the sound of that voice saying, "Good-by till this evening," and
seeing the smile with which it was said.

"To England or The Hermitage?"

"It's all the same to me."

"Well, then, England it is," said Stepan Arkadyevich, selecting that
restaurant because he owed more there than at The Hermitage, and
consequently considered it mean to avoid it. "Have you got a sleigh?
That's fine- for I sent my carriage home."

The friends hardly spoke all the way. Levin was wondering what
that change in Kitty's expression had meant, and alternately
assuring himself that there was hope, and falling into despair, seeing
clearly that his hopes were insane, and yet all the while he felt
himself quite another man, utterly unlike what he had been before
her smile and those words, "Good-by till this evening."

Stepan Arkadyevich was absorbed during the drive in composing the
menu of the dinner.